yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
I'm a video editor and have been shooting and editing video professionally for the past 7 years. I don't work for Samsung, Sprint, or any affiliated companies.

The camcorder lags in low light because the shutter rate of the camera has to slow down in order to capture the image. The shutter rate is how many times the shutter has to open and close in order to take in light to make an image. On a nice sunny day outdoors, the light sensor can easily take in the light. Hence, you get a high shutter rate. Sometimes up to 1/5000 depending on the camera.

When you're shooting in low light situations, the sensor has to be open long enough in order to take in enough light to make an image. Thus, the shutter rate decreases to about 1/10 or so. When the shutter rate decreases, your camera can make a nice low light picture... but you get blur, grain, and what looks like a slower frame rate.

So, this camcorder "lag" you speak of in low light is NORMAL. It's inherent to all video cameras in low light. If you want a better image... get some lights!

If the low light performance on the camcorder was better with a different build, like in DI18, they probably locked the shutter rate at about 1/30 in order to keep a good framerate, but the low light performance wouldn't be as good as you have now.

TL/DR: It's normal. They just reduced the shutter speed so you can get a BETTER image in low light. Want a better image? Film in better lighting!

Edit: What Samsung should do to fix this is to lock the shutter rate at about 1/30. You won't get a good low light image, but the motion will be consistent. Seems to me you guys want good motion and not a good image. You can't have both in low light situations. You have to choose one or the other.
[Epic 4G General] kryptoniteman:
Thanks for your expert advice.....but we'll wait to hear back from someone that actually writes code
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
Wrong. You failed to understand the issue. This eb13 has either flawed drivers or the wrong ones. The dk28 froyo beta works flawlessly. I personally tested both builds. This is a programmers error that should be patched soon. When the patch is given, it should work as good as eclair or dk28.
[Epic 4G General] poit:
It appears that on the older builds the camera gained up to deal with lower light situations. On the current build it slows the frame rate (not the shutter rate) even normal indoor lighting. You shouldn't do that with video. This would be fine on a still camera but totally unacceptable in video, even amateur video taken with a cell phone.

BTW, I'm a broadcast video engineer by trade.
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
Here's the problem: You didn't say what the problem is. You just said "it doesn't work". What doesn't work? Please accurately explain and DETAIL the problem with the camcorder in EB13.
[Epic 4G General] spitefulrain:
Theres nothing wrong about what he said. He said that the programmers did it. They locked the shutter rate in DI18, to prevent lag. It just causes a lower quality video. The videos in low light were darker in DI18, but faster. Which is what he is saying.
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
The shutter rate slows down the GOP, but the frame rate remains constant.
[Epic 4G General] badasscat:
It's not "normal". If you're really a video editor, you'd know that. Being able to explain an effect doesn't make it "normal".

That's like saying "I can explain your cancer. Cancer is just when cells mutate and crowd out other cells. It happens to a lot of people. It's perfectly normal!"

Phone sensors are smaller and therefore not as sensitive to light as sensors in professional or even semi-professional cameras. (Larger sensors can capture more light; just the laws of physics.) So image quality on phones is always a compromise.

However, the solution to this lack of light-gathering ability should not be to hold the shutter open for such a long time that it ruins the frame rate. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face. And no one should accept it.

I think we are all fine with a little graininess in the artificially boosted low-light images from our Epic camcorders as long as it means we have a stable frame rate. This is the way every other low-end camera works and it's the way this phone used to work, and should still work.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
Fine, I figure everyone is aware of the bug. Go to a very dark room and launch the camcorder. Maybe turn on the tv so that's the only light source. Now pan around the room. You see that god awful blur? That's because the camera is barely pushing 5 fps. Compare that to eclair or dk28, in which keeps a steady healthy 30 fps with absolutely no frame drops.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
correct. Being a pro photographer should hint him that its not normal. But we ask make mistakes. Just like samsung or sprint made resulting in what we are experiencing. Btw, sprint acknowledges the camera bug aswell.
[Epic 4G General] edscheenstra:
It would be nice if they could just make options like the gain user adjustable so that we could tailer that setting to whatever lighting environment we're in....like the iso on a still cam.
[Epic 4G General] jonesy827:
I know that before when I had DK28, my videos would not capture past 3 seconds, I would get a message saying Recording Failed. With the new build this doesnt happen.
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
Re-read my first post, sir, and you'll get your answer.
[Epic 4G General] xxmastermindxx:
How long do your recordings last now? Mine fail around 2 minutes, using a class 6 sd card. Never happened before.
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
There's an option to free record and to limit for MMS. However, I've had recording fail a few times on DK28 when I was on free record. I figured I had too many programs running in the background.

I've recorded a few times at varying lengths in EB13 and haven't had any problems so far.
[Epic 4G General] poit:
The point is, something that worked fine before, (smooth video recording indoors) doesn't work now. It's not normal, anyone who has seen it can tell it's not normal.
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
Samsung probably wanted you to get the best picture out of your camera and lowered the shutter speed to not add any artificial gain.

It's damned if you do and damned if you don't. Add gain and people complain about grain and artifacts. Slow down the shutter rate and get slower playback. Don't shoot the messenger here!
[Epic 4G General] DangerZone1223:
True. I'll add this to my original post.
[Epic 4G General] CapsLockKey:
I'll gladly take graininess over a what looks like a blurry Peter Gabriel video.
[Epic 4G General] adelmundo:
Here is a video I shot of one of my DJ friends in low light using only the camera flash as the light source on my phone (along with the various disco/club lights). Even in low light, the frame rate was very smooth.

[YOUTUBE]u56Pny5Xy2E[/YOUTUBE]

After the EB13 update, the fps is horrible and I would never be able to shoot this same video in the phone's current state.
[Epic 4G General] poit:
Here's an example of the problem, shot at 640 by 480.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvUpCub5GE0

[YOUTUBE]bvUpCub5GE0[/YOUTUBE]
[Epic 4G General] boominz28:
awesome vid , too bad you cant do a vid just like it to comapare that way everyone who keeps saying its either a not happening, or b its because of hardware.
[Epic 4G General] othan1:
Your video's not playing but I know what you're talking about. I should have waited until after my daughter's play to update but didn't know about the horrible camera lag EB13 introduced.

Your DJ video is what I was expecting from my own past experience but I ended up getting Video Barbie quality footage with EB13.
[Epic 4G General] endurance1:
did anyone try installing the old camera icon from dk28 on the new build yet? i could possibly back it up and upload it, since i just went back to dk28

i have those same decks if those are the cdj mx2 800's
[Epic 4G General] bomix:
I have noticed the image is a lot better when your recording in good lit conditions. though i'd rather have good motion then a good image.
[Epic 4G General] bjhill2112:
Yeah - the APKs don't make a difference. There's someone in another thread that's looking at replacing all the modules. Hopefully something there works.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
I did, but your assumption is wrong by welcomed.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
exactly! Op refuses to accept. But again, thoughts are welcomed.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
I did just that yesterday. 2 times aswell. Odex and no odex. Still exact blur. Its the eb13 code.
[Epic 4G General] Quis89:
Sounds like you should all get camcorders. I've never used my PHONE as my sole video recorder. Seems kinda silly.
[Epic 4G General] adelmundo:
Yeah but do you lug your camcorder where ever you go just in case you need to take a spur of the moment shot?

Of course when it is feasible, I do carry a video camera when I know I will need to use it, but how about those times when you do not bring it with you because you didn't expect to use it?

In practicality, most people do not carry their camcorders everywhere. BUT we carry our phones practically everywhere, so it makes sense if our phones (which we paid good money for) could shoot at least acceptable video, especially since it USED to shoot that way before the update to EB13.

I once read a saying from somewhere, "The best camera is the one that's with you."
[Epic 4G General] tmuka:
I too have better cameras and camcorders too, but I don't always carry them on me...

Has anyone else tried setting the exposure compensation to the max setting (2) for low light video recording? To me it appears to improve the frame rate at the expense of grainy picture from the iso gain. Seems the auto setting are different in eb13... try it, Better?
[Epic 4G General] ptfdmedic:
HAs anyone tried swapping the camera firmware with dk28? It's not the same thing as the apk. Also I have had many say its related to EXT4 though that doesn't really make sense.
[Epic 4G General] snowmanwithahat:
"normal" isn't quite the word he probably should have used... rather, EXPECTED. It's what you expect to happen in low light and there's different ways of coping with it that have been explained in the first post. Especially being a small digital sensor it's far more susceptible to this behavior too
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
tried already. Its a fail.
[Epic 4G General] ptfdmedic:
what about cameradata? and the lib files
[Epic 4G General] drunix:
You're on to the right solution here... it's the sd card write speed that causes the problem with recording failed. I've also noticed that all class 6's are not equal, some are faster and will handle the 720p video, others are not (even though they're supposed to guarantee a particular sustained write speed, performance can degrade due to fragmentation and other reasons, and some cards are just faster than others, even if they claim the same class).

If you're having problems now and didn't before, try backing up and reformatting your sd card, then try again... it might be better for a while.

Alternatively, if you lower the resolution to one step under max, it shouldn't fail (it hasn't for me, even with stock SD)--****ty solution, but it does at least get you video.
[Epic 4G General] poit:
My friend, this isn't an attempt to flame anyone here, but those of us who are paying attention and have used both versions know that something went wrong with the video camera funcitoning with the EB13 update. Again, here are two videos, the first with the old firmware in low light, note the relatively smooth frame rate:

[YOUTUBE]u56Pny5Xy2E[/YOUTUBE]

The next with the new firmware in low light, basically a slide show until I shoot the bright screen of my laptop:

[YOUTUBE]bvUpCub5GE0[/YOUTUBE]

I shot the second one this morning. I am a video engineer. I understand cameras and phones. It isn't operator error. THERE IS A BUG. This is not a new "feature" this problem even shows up on the "live display on the screen when you are not recording. It's not a sd card problem. I did reformat the card anyway, no difference.
[Epic 4G General] bjhill2112:
Sorry, but there is a real issue here - see poit's example. I'm thinking that the issue lies somewhere in the kernel. Either a change to the driver code or Samsung's V4L2 post processing (which might be the same thing - my understanding is a little limited and documentation on this is ... poor). If my theory is right, then calling it a "bug" is a little bit of a misinterpretation - I'm thinking more of a poor implementation decision. A setting that's wrong or something bad with a frame buffer somewhere. That's my limit of try to look into it though. Linux and C are not my strong suit - I'm a C# programmer (with an open source phone - lol).
[Epic 4G General] ultra78721:
+1 that lag crap is annoying :mad:
[Epic 4G General] ultra78721:
It couldn't be described better then this:D
[Epic 4G General] drunix:
His videos show exactly what I explained. Longer exposure times = fewer frames per second and the light absorbed during each frame is absorbed over a longer time frame, which means if you're moving, it blurs. Net effect is lower FPS and blurry as ****.

compare the two videos below, taken seconds apart, with the only difference being that the one on the left had the exposure adjusted to -2:

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeexS2RTXgwk&start1=0&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHPUKSfweVK8&start2=0&authorName=drunix

Edit: the more I look at it, the more I think the difference is just that they adjusted the exposure over by about two of their units. What is currently -2 is about what used to be 0. So I think the only *real* difference is that you could have adjusted it further down by going to -2 on the old DI18. It was smoother, but darker before.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=970452

Fix'd (EDIT: by mkasick, not me!).

The fix will be in the kernel paired with SyndicateROM Frozen. ;)
[Epic 4G General] tmspyder:
Confirmed the patch works.

And cant wait for SyndicateROM Frozen!!!!
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
fail. Bug at the kernel level. Proved wrong and now jump of the high horse. Devs, hope on.
[Epic 4G General] abduljaffar:
just awesome! I was going to dig deep this weekend, but now you saved me! Thxs. Bug eliminated and camera is comfirmed a go.
[Epic 4G General] kryptoniteman:
Deleted......
[Epic 4G General] drunix:
Just want to point out that the bug was a line removal from the enumeration of ISO shutter speeds. I did a little digging at the source, but didn't go deep enough for a conclusive answer, but my guess is that the bug was causing the exposure to get adjusted downward.

So I'm wrong in the sense that I thought it would have been a conscious decision to adjust the exposure time, when in reality it seems to have been a bug that did it. The OP and my explanation is still 100% valid as to *why* the effect happened, and is adjusting the exposure setting still had the effect of making it better, as evidenced in my videos.

ACS guys, I'm curious if you tracked down the reason that having the extra value in the enum was an issue or if it just was obvious because it was the only cahnge to the file or something? Was it just that it was introduced in one place and caused an off-by-one or something elsewhere when accessing it? or do you think just having it in there made that portion of the code not work at all?

Edit: also, the 30 posts of screaming wrong at the guy who posted something useful, that explained why it was blurry was still unhelpful, which was my primary point.
[Epic 4G General] Khemul:
I think you are missing the reason for those 'wrong' posts. It was a misunderstanding in the way the OP presented the argument at first. Most people thought he was trying to explain why it wasn't an issue (when he said it was 'normal' for it to happen), not why it happened.

Not saying it was a good response, but it was more of a misunderstanding. Generally you'll find a lot of people on these types of forums arn't really interested in why something is not working the way they want. They are generally more interested in how it can be fixed/changed to work the way they want. Explanations on why things happen the way they do are looked at as justifications for 'bugs'.
[Epic 4G General] mkasick:
Pretty much. Specifically, when recording in movie mode, the Camera driver was using incorrectly using ISO_NIGHT mode instead of the intended ISO_MOVIE mode. Your previous posts explain the exact difference one would expect between these two.

I updated the development thread OP with my musings on the bug, which I think answers this for you.

In short, it was a combination of things that lead me to zero-in on the enum: knowledge that this wasn't an issue in DK28, which provided a time range in which the bug had to be introduced; knowledge that it must be in the kernel; etc. I suspected something was wrong with it immediately when I saw a new mode being added to the middle of the enum. The fact that the enum shift would likely result in use of the invalid ISO_FIREWORKS mode if intending to use ISO_SPORTS; and specifically the use of ISO_NIGHT when intending to use ISO_MOVIE, perfectly matched your description of what was going on at the camera level.

That's a rather poor view of these kinds of explanations to have.

In absence of a comprehensive source revision history, when one can't bisect change sets to find exactly where/when a bug was introduced, explanations as to what the bug is really doing are often instrumental in narrowing down the relevant sections of code for analysis.

Without knowing that "videodev2_samsung.h" was very-recently modified, I probably wouldn't have looked at the header file first but concentrated more on the camera driver code. Based on the explanations as what the buggy-code was doing, and why it might be doing that, I would've added instrumentation points in functions relevant to setting shutter speed, ISO mode, etc., and would've likely found it that way.

So I credit the OP for help framing the effect of the problem properly in the minds of those most capable of identifying and fixing it in code. This is the debugging process as it should work.
[Epic 4G General] Khemul:
Oh I agree. I wasn't saying it was good. It is very helpful for the development community to know how and why things happen/don't happen.

But a good portion of the forum dwellers are not developers, and a large portion of those don't understand or care about the 'how' or 'why'. They are mainly interested in whether it'll be fixed or not (again, not really a good thing but a reality none-the-less). I think the OP hit a nerve with that portion of the community, because they read the explanation as 'this is why it happened, live with it' and not 'this is why it happened and what would be lost if changed back'.
[Epic 4G General] drunix:
Beautiful explanation, and thanks for elaborating. I wish there was a lot more of this kind of discussion on the forums.. also big props for posting a diff instead of just including it in your own kernel without explanation. This kind of thing will help encourage more developers, educate more non-developers, and foster a lot more cooperation amongst developers.

Great work.
[Epic 4G General] XtaC318:
This team-work makes me warm and fuzzy inside =D

sorry..had to say it..haha
[Epic 4G General] ZenInsight:
This is a speed issue with the micro sd. Get a class 6 and it doesn't happen any more. Test this by first recordng at a lower quality to see if it works. If it desnt its your rom most likely.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] prashm:
I recently flashed the aospCMod-20110123 (gingerbread) on my sprint HTC hero. The upgrade has been awesome so far except for one really annoying issue. My pandora app hasn't been playing properly (I uninstalled and reinstalled the app). The music becomes choppy when the screen turns off. Reactivating the screen fixes the sound most of the time but it's really annoying. I haven't had this issue before with CM6.1 (froyo). Did anyone else see this issue ? I would greatly appreciate for any possible solution to this problem.

Thanks.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] poashll:
If you are using the kernel that comes with the ROM:

Go into CM Settings and then performance.

Within CPU Settings, change the governor to ONDEMAND.

You'll have to reboot. If that alone doesn't fix your problem then bump you MIN CPU setting to 256.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] stayclean:
What is your min set to? Probably needs to be bumped up to 264 or whatever.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] prashm:
Thanks for quick reply. However, I don't find the CPU settings option under Settings->CyanogenMod settings -> Performance. Is that enabled by a separate app that I may be missing ?
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] poashll:
If you flashed a different kernel, you will not see the option. If that is the case, you will need to use Setcpu or Deca's battery tweak.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] prashm:
Thanks poashll. I installed cputuner free app and restarted ph. That completely jacked my ph. I kept on getting "The process com.android.phone has stopped unexpectedly.." error. Nothing seemed to fix it. So I restored my cm6 backed up rom. Thank God that I had backed up my prev ROM. Then I downloaded and flashed the latest CM7 nightly build. This one had the CPU Settings option. Before I mess with it, I backed up my current configurations (it's a real pain in the butt to re-install all the lost apps and configurations). And then changed the governor to ONDEMAND. Now my pandora works great and battery life is still good!

Thanks a ton for all the help! I appreciate that.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] noriyori:
hmmmm... I have been having the same problem since I installed ASOP gingerbread. and still have it with CM 7. adjusting the cpu settings work fine for me as long as I don't let the phone's screen go to sleep. but if the screen stays awake it's fine....

any other setting you suggest? kind of a waste of battery to be running pandora AND have the screen awake all the time.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] poashll:
What settings are you using?
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] noriyori:
I set the governor to ONDEMAND and the MIN to 264. But like a dummy, I didn't set the 'Set on boot' option so my settings reverted when I rebooted...
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mccandroid:
How is the ondemand governor different than the standard interactive governor?
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] oohaylima:
Mine is still on interactive, but the min is on 352. Anything lower than that for my phone, and it will skip when the screen turns off.
[HD2 General] koolxx:
i need to know what type of sd card is included with the tmobile hd2? is it class 2?
[HD2 General] T-Macgnolia:
Yes it is SanDisk class 2 16GB sd card.